Marvel and DC are set on a cinematic crash course, with both houses intent on releasing blockbuster comic hero movies on the same day in May 2016.

Marvel already had the May 6 date staked out for an unnamed entry in its ongoing filmhouse franchise when Warner Bros announced its own Superman vs. Batman flick would move from July 2015 onto Marvel's May day.

Zack Snyder is to direct, with Ben Affleck cast as Batman and Henry Cavill returning as Supes.

Affleck has already appeared in the lead role of Daredevil (2003) and as 1950s Superman actor George Reeves in Hollywoodland (2006).

Now, The Hollywood Reporter claims to have unveiled the Marvel film's secret identity – none other than a third Captain America film, whose second part releases end of this month.

Previously, Captain America: The First Avenger banked US$370mil (RM1.2bil) following its 2011 release, on a budget of US$140mil (RM459mil), while this year's Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a budget of US$170mil (RM557mil). – AFP Relaxnews

The studio plans to film one of Julia Roberts' best-loved movies in Mandarin and market it in China. Hen hao!

Sony's Columbia Pictures announced recently its plans to remake My Best Friend's Wedding – in Mandarin.

The studio has partnered with several Chinese filmmakers and production companies to make three Chinese-language movies, with one being a re-telling of the hit Julia Roberts romantic comedy.

Six of the 10 highest-grossing movies released in China over the past five years have been in the country's native tongue, encouraging many in Hollywood to contemplate changing their approach to the world's second largest film market.

Village Roadshow, producer of The Great Gatsby and The Lego Movie, has a sister company dedicated to Chinese-language productions, while Disney just announced a new partnership with a Chinese company to make English-language films.

"Columbia Pictures is reemphasising our long established commitment to Chinese local language production," Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures, said in statement. "We are delighted to be collaborating with such world class filmmakers as Chen Kaige and Jiang Wen, as well as partnering with esteemed Chinese production companies like New Classics Media, as we ramp up our activity in China."

Sony's first of three films entering production is The Monk, a martial arts movie with Cao Huayi. Acclaimed filmmaker Chen Kaige will direct from a script based on a best-selling novel by Xu Haofeng, a director and writer who worked on Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster. The film stars Wang Baoqiang, the star of Lost In Thailand, one of the highest-grossing movies in Chinese history.

The Monk is China's second recent production in mainland China, following Jiang Wen's Gone With The Bullets. The film is set to open next summer.

New Classics Media will distribute The Monk for Columbia in China, and will work with the studio on the My Best Friend's Wedding remake when it enters production in 2014. Columbia's third film, Summer Has Tears with Ruyi Media, will start shooting later this year.

Few Chinese language movies make money in the United States, but Sony produced Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the highest-grossing foreign language movie in US history. — Reuters

"Twilight, I'm sorry, is about a very unhealthy, toxic relationship. She falls in love with this guy and the second he leaves her, her life is over and she's going to kill herself," Woodley told Teen Vogue for the April issue's cover story.

"What message are we sending to young people? That is not going to help this world evolve." The 22-year-old actress takes the lead in the movie from Lionsgate (the same studio that released Twilight) as Tris Prior, a teenager who learns she does not fit into any of the five virtue-based factions that the futuristic, society dreamed up by author Veronica Roth, is divided into.

Since she is a "divergent," her life is in danger and she must fight alongside a fellow divergent named Four to get to the bottom of the conspiracy hatched by the leader of another faction.

Kirsten Stewart and Robert Pattinson in one of the Twilight films.

The expected blockbuster is "so metaphorical to today's society", Woodley told the Daily Beast, and she hopes it will start a conversation between audiences about our own issues.

"One of the most beautiful quotes in the book is when Tris says, 'Back in the day, my mum had a choice between eating naturally-irrigated food and genetically-engineered foods. Now, there is no choice. That's all we have'," Woodley said.

"I thought that was so powerful because we're getting to a point where all agriculture is going to depend on seeds that were created in a lab-which is so counterintuitive to the way Mother Nature meant it to be. There's the issue of a tyrant taking over and genocide-someone going in, choosing a particular class of people, and murdering them by brainwashing other people. And there's the issue of spying on other people and this whole drone situation going on now."

Audiences who haven't read the book will discover the many metaphors – like how or why the city of Chicago would be divided into five factions in the future – next week in Malaysia. — Reuters